Morris groups receive state funding

Students pretend to be zombies during a 2010 educational workshop at Playwrights Theatre in Madison. The company just received a combined $221,770 in grants for fiscal 2015 from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
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Five Morris-based arts groups were among the recipients of six-figure grants announced this week by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

The Morris Museum in Morris Township, Morris Arts and the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and Playwrights Theatre in Madison were all awarded grants of at least $100,000 for fiscal year 2015, with some groups receiving or sharing additional grants for various projects and programs.

MPAC received the largest individual grant of the Morris County groups — $170,717 for general operating support as a performing-arts presenter. And the Shakespeare Theatre was awarded $157,717 for general operating support as a theater.

But a much smaller organization — Playwrights Theatre — not only secured a grant of $43,170 for general operating support, but an additional combined total of $178,600 for two cosponsored programs, bringing their total for fiscal 2015 up to $221,770.

The $43,000 for operations matched last year’s grant, according to a grateful Artistic Director John Pietrowski, who said “Flat is really good given the way the world is right now.”

Shakespeare Theatre Managing Director Jeanne Barrett agreed with Pietrowski and was relieved the company also received the same amount as last year.

“We were very pleased about that,” Barrett said. “You always hope that additional dollars will be allocated to the arts, but that is not happening right now.”

Playwrights Theatre, which specializes in the development of new plays, lost its longtime space at the former Green Village School in 2010 as the borough planned to develop the property, but was able to move its offices to the Madison Civic Center.

Since then, the company has expanded its educational programs, including the New Jersey Writer’s Project and New Jersey Poetry Out Loud. Both are cosponsored by the council, which awarded $106,600 to the Writer’s Project and $72,000 for Poetry Out Loud, a statewide poetry-recitation program for high school students that had 28,500 participants last year.

“The amount was increased this year for our 10th anniversary,” Pietrowski said of Poetry Out Loud. “Our New Jersey champ was runner-up in the national finals last year.”

The Writer’s Project works with educators and other groups to students discover the joy or writing, performing and being creative. In addition to programs in public schools in Madison, Newark and around New Jersey, the program also reaches out to seniors and the disabled, engaging about 15,000 people annually. The grant also helps fund the popular annual New Jersey Young Playwrights contest and festival.

Like Playwrights Theatre, the Morris Museum and MPAC also received multiple grants. The Morris Museum, which also operates the professional Bickford Theatre, was awarded $149,262 for general operating support and another $14,000 for the cosponsorship of the annual New Jersey Arts Annual in Crafts exhibition. MPAC also got $19,256 for its arts education special initiatives.

“As we enter our 20th anniversary season, we reflect on how instrumental the NJSCA’s support has been to the success of MPAC over the years,” said MPAC President and CEO Allison Larena. “We are extremely grateful that their continued investment in our organization allows us to serve hundreds of thousands of people each year and generate more than $14 million back into our local economy.”

Morris Arts received a grant of $103,080 for its local arts programming. The Whippany-based J.C.C. Metrowest was awarded $28,844 for general program support.